


Across the Table

by A_A_Inc



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 14:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13615584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_A_Inc/pseuds/A_A_Inc
Summary: This is sad. It's just me, being sad, writing about a sad queer girl. And heartbreak. It's in the form of an open letter, addressing an unidentified person.





	Across the Table

          You sit across the table from me, smiling and relaxed. I sip at my glass, studying you. The years have changed you, I notice, from the young girl I once knew. I smile, telling you, and you laugh and tell me that they’ve done the same to me. I know. They’ve changed my figure, and my face, but most of all they changed my heart and mind. 

          Even with the changes, you’re still the girl I fell in love with all those years ago. The same passion for music shines in your face, the open friendly flirting that I hadn’t noticed at first is still there in your voice. I see joy, happiness and success there, as I knew I would. I could see it long ago. 

           tell you how I’ve stopped singing, and a frown falls upon your face. You ask me why. I know that you’ve done well in music, I’ve kept up with your career, so I know why. I wonder if you thought you saw the same potential in my face as I saw in yours. I don’t think so. 

          I smile sadly to myself, and let the nostalgia fill me. 

          I tell you something simple, that I just did, that it was gradual, because I had no time. This is a lie. I think about how I fled from where I grew up, about how I tried to cut the ties between life before and life after. One thing I felt I had to lose was music. I loved it, I still do, but it had been a defining part of the before, and therefore couldn’t be so in the after.

          Our conversation drifts from topic to topic, and I find that I still enjoy your company. I think back on all the time we spent together. I speak my mind.

          “Remember when you told me that you almost kissed me once in a bathroom on choir tour?”

          You laugh, and say you do.

          “I was in love with you,” I say introspectively. You look thoughtful.

          “It was a slow thing. At first I didn’t know, and didn’t understand. But I realized that I was in love with you. I think if you had kissed me that day, I would have been confused. It would have been to early for me.” I smile wryly. “As always, I was running late. Too late, because by the time I figured out I was in love with you, you had moved on.”

          You look a little sad, almost.

          “I was never hurt, never really heartbroken. I knew from the start it was already over. I never put my heart on the line to break.” I finish my drink. “I think that If we’d met later, perhaps, at around twenty, maybe, we could have been happy together.”

          You agree. The conversation moves on.

          Eventually the bill comes, and we pay and part ways, making vague plans to see each other. They are plans I know won’t come to fruition. You travel often, and I have learned to let people go.

 

          I don’t see you again for several more years, but one day you seek me out. The day is beautiful, with a clear sky, although it is winter, so snow covers the ground, and it is quite cold out. I take a deep breath, and exhale, watching it fog before me. I walk down the street, heading towards my destination when you run up the sidewalk behind me, calling my name and weaving through people. 

          I turn around, confused.

          I drink in the sight of you, the dark circles under tired eyes, how your coat looks too thin for the weather, like you didn’t expect it to be so cold.

          You look old.

          No, you look unhappy.

          Even after so many years, I still hate the way unhappiness looks in your face, so I ask you what’s wrong.

          You tell me that you had a nasty break up, and that you were in the city and didn't know who else to call, but you hesitate and stumble over your location, so I know you’re lying. You must have come here to see me, I realize. I don’t know why.

          I give you a patient and comforting smile, and unwind my scarf from around my neck, tucking it snugly around yours. You tuck your chin into it and breathe in deeply.

          I take you to a cafe I know, a little one that feels cozy and homely. I know you can feel it too, because your shoulders relax as you walk in. I tell you to go sit down, while I order us food and drinks. I walk over to the table you’ve picked, tucked into the corner with a good view of the whole cafe. It’s my favorite table. You tell me about your breakup, and I listen.

          As I listen to you, I think that I could easily fall in love with you again. I still love you, in the way that you always have some affection and love for the people that made you who you are. For a moment, I entertain the thought of you feeling similarly for me. It’s a nice thought, but I know that I did not make you in the way you made me. I will always remember you clearly, but I know you won’t always remember me as more than someone in a group of someones. I brush the thought away.

          Once you have cried yourself out, and I have comforted you as much as I can, I ask if you have somewhere to stay while you’re here, or if you’re leaving soon. You shrug, lost.

          You remind me in that moment so strongly of my younger self.

          I offer you a place to stay. You accept, for the time being.

 

          You become a fact of life in my house, after that. You stay for six weeks with me, after that first day. Then you travel, coming to stay with me for a week or two, like a home base between journeys. It makes me happy, to see you regaining a sense of self, and happiness.

          I know I am falling in love again.

 

          Eventually, it comes to an end, and you decide you want your own place. You move away from me, but it’s okay. I knew it would have to come to an end eventually.

          You come and visit occasionally, but those visits, too, come to an end, and I am again left to my own devices for a while.

 

          I smile into my drink at the bar as the beautiful woman next to me, my fiance, tells me a story from work today. I kiss her, telling her that I love her. She tells me that she loves me, too. She says she has to go to the bathroom, and disappears towards the bathroom, where I know there’ll be a line. I pull out my phone, prepared to wait.

          You sit down in front of me a minute later, filling the seat my fiance had left empty. I greet you, pleased and surprised. I haven’t seen you in years. You tell me about your life, and soon we are laughing. My fiance comes back from the bathroom and wraps an arm around my waist. I greet her with a smile and a brief kiss. I introduce the two of you, but you seem confused. It occurs to me that you’ve never seen me in a relationship. I always seemed to be perpetually single.

          That meeting was brief. I only saw you that one night.

 

          The next time we meet I am again single. My fiance was hit by a car, leaving me alone and properly heartbroken for the first time in my life. I was again left to pick up the pieces of my life.

          I almost had all the pieces together when I saw you again. My friend had invited me out to a concert and dinner, and when I looked up at the stage, you were there. We did not speak, but I made eye contact with you. I know you recognised me. One of your songs was about a girl you used to know, who faded in and out of your life without you noticing. It hurt, you said, to notice one day that someone who meant so much to you somehow had vanished again, slipping through your fingers.

          I nearly fled the concert hall to avoid you seeking me out.

 

          The last time I saw you again, after years apart, it was only by coincidence. My friend was in the hospital after a surgery, and I got lost and walked into the wrong room. Your room. It felt like fate, that time. I was surprised to see you. You said you’d been hospitalized for breaking your leg, and fracturing several ribs. You were in a car crash. 

          We talked for hours that day. I came back almost every day after that until you were released. We were happy.

 

          As I sit across the table from you, relating all of this to you, you sit quietly and absorb. There is a moment of silence when I am done, as I allow you to process.

          “I love you. I think I always will.”

          You say nothing, and I wake up.

 

          I promise myself that next time I tell you I love you, it will be real.

 

          I don’t think I ever will tell you.


End file.
